Page 27 of The Widow and the Wanted

“The snow is high,” Okee says, low. “No one’s out there. Play soft. Sound won’t carry.”

Boone stares at the guitar like it might burn him. Then the fight drains out of him on a long breath.

“One song,” he concedes, rough, as if he’s angry at himself for giving in.

He settles on the edge of the bed and cradles the guitar against his chest. His long fingers find the frets with surprising care. He plucks a few tentative chords, testing, tuning. It twangs, sharp in some places and flat in others.

Then a quick, simple picking pattern—plain, bouncy.

“Two aces walkin’, tall and hard,

Knee-high trouble—she’s a wild card⁠—”

He doubles over laughing at his own foolishness. Okee joins him, soft and boyish.

“I like that,” Okee says, through a brilliant smile. “Wild card.”

“Quit calling me knee-high,” I tell them, nudging Boone with my boot.

“Do another,” Okee says. “One you know.”

Boone’s laughter fades. He swallows once, and the next notes come slower, as if he has to pull them up from somewhere deep.

When he sings, it isn’t pretty in the way parlor songs are pretty. It’s raw at the center. The firelight carves hollows under his eyes, his cheekbones, as he sings about the pines with a kind of ache that feels both private and sincere. It feels so honest, heat floods my face.

It must be the whiskey. The fire. The strange peace of being alive after so much blood.

Across the room, Okee watches Boone, not like a man judging a song, but like the song is doing something to him.

The last note fades. Boone sets the guitar aside too quickly and won’t look at either of us.

“That was pretty,” I say.

He nods once, eyes on the floorboards.

Silence rushes in.

I turn, and Okee is still fixed on Boone, hand clenched on the chair’s edge. Boone’s eyes flick up and lock with his.

It’s only a heartbeat, maybe two. The air in the cabin feels too thin to breathe. I shouldn’t be here for this, whatever it is.

“It’s late,” I say, too brisk. “I think I’ll retire, if that’s all right.”

Okee blinks as if I’ve pulled him from somewhere far away. “Of course,” he says, half rising, uncertain whether to follow.

“I can manage,” I say quickly, wrapping the blanket tighter around my shoulders.

I climb the ladder slowly, careful not to look back. The loft is small—bedroll, low window caked with frost. I settle onto the blankets and watch the firelight flicker across the rafters.

Below, the silence stretches, soft and heavy. Boone clears his throat. Okee moves across the floor. The cabin creaks.

What did I just witness between them?

I close my eyes. Manners demand I keep such thoughts to myself. But my gut says I recognized a connection I cannot yet define.

Perhaps it’s only the whiskey.

I put it out of my mind, hoping sleep will come easy.